SPREADING RUMORS

Did The White House Give The Taliban $43 Million?

According to commentators of all ideological stripes -- from the Nation's
Christopher Hitchens on the left to the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg in
the center to the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly on the right -- the US
gave $43 million to Afghanistan's Taliban government as a reward for its
efforts to stamp out opium-poppy cultivation. That would have been a
shockingly inappropriate gift to a government that had been sanctioned by
the United Nations for its refusal to hand over international terrorist
Osama bin Laden.

Would have been, that is, if it had really happened. It didn't.

The truth is contained in the transcript of a briefing given by Secretary
of State Colin Powell, who on May 17 announced the $43 million grant; it
was aimed at alleviating a famine that threatened the lives of four million
Afghans. Far from handing the money over to the Taliban, Powell went out of
his way to criticize them, and to explain the steps the United States was
taking to keep the money out of its hands.

"We distribute our assistance in Afghanistan through international agencies
of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, " Powell said. "
We provide our relief to the people of Afghanistan, not to Afghanistan's
ruling factions. Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to
alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to
exacerbate it. "

Powell did say one favorable thing about the Taliban: "We will continue to
look for ways to provide more assistance for Afghans, including those
farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a
decision by the Taliban that we welcome." The bottom line, though, was --
or should have been -- easy enough to comprehend: humanitarian aid for
Afghans, yes; money for the Taliban, no. ( On Tuesday, the Taliban reversed
themselves, announcing that opium production will resume if the US attacks.
) Most media reports of Powell's announcement got it right. Within days,
though, the commentators began making hash of it. Among the first was Los
Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer, who on May 22 criticized the Bush
administration for its "recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of
Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in
the world today." Scheer did not respond to my requests for comment, so I
can't be sure where he got his information. But his Web site credits a New
York Times article of May 18 that, though accurate, glosses over the matter
of who precisely would receive the $43 million. Scheer apparently drew the
wrong conclusion.

A computer search for "Taliban" and "$43 million" since September 11 shows
that Scheer's error has become accepted wisdom. News organizations from
Salon to the Denver Post have all repeated it as proof that the US has been
coddling terrorists. Locally, Jay Severin, a talk-show host on WTKK Radio (
96.9 FM ), has been eviscerating the Bush White House. Asked where he got
his information, Severin cited a column by the New York Post's Michelle Malkin.

Malkin got it more right than most. She noted that the money was intended
to relieve Afghan suffering, but went on to say, "It's money the Taliban
don't have to spend feeding their people, buying them medicine or building
them houses," thus freeing them to buy "guns and bombs ... missiles and
aircraft" and "pilot training and living expenses for bin Laden's followers
in the US." But that's a specious argument, given that the Taliban have
never shown the slightest inclination to feed, clothe, or otherwise care
for the people of Afghanistan.

Eli Lake, who covers the State Department for UPI and who wrote an accurate
report about the $43 million grant last May, calls the notion that the
White House gave the money to the Taliban as a reward for their anti-drug
efforts "just absurd" He notes that one of the Bush administration's first
actions upon taking office was to shut down the Taliban's mission in New
York, in compliance with UN sanctions.

Lake recalls a conversation he had with Andrew Natsios, the former
Massachusetts politico who is now the White House's point man for foreign
aid, around the time that the $43 million grant was announced."

He explained that the Bush administration, as a matter of policy, did not
want to link needed aid to political considerations, " Lake says -- whether
it be in Afghanistan or in other rogue states with starving, suffering
populations, such as Sudan and North Korea.

It's too bad, but not surprising, that some elements of the media couldn't
get it right. After all, no good deed, as they say, goes unpunished.

This story originally appeared in the Boston Phoenix, an alternative weekly
in that city. This story comes to us from Alternet, the news service of
the alternative press.